The Reviews:
Archer's Goon, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Leaf's Reviews
Blue Moon, by James Ponti, at The Book Monsters
The Boundless, by Kenneth Oppel, at Waking Brain Cells
The Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, at Charlotte's Library
The Children of Green Knowe, by L.M. Boston, at Tor
Cosmic, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, at Susan the Librarian
Evil Fairies Love Hair, by Mary G. Thompson, at Smitten Over Books
The Familiars, by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, at Bewitched Bookworms
Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times, by Emma Trevayne, at Dee's Reads
Flora and Ulysses, by Kate DiCamillo, at Teach Mentor Texts
The Forbidden Library, by Django Wexler, at Charlotte's Library
The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer L. Holm, at Book Nut and The Knight Reader
The Frankenstein Journals, by Scott Sonneborn, at The Bookshelf Gargoyle
The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman, at books4yourkids
Frostborn, by Lou Anders, at The Bibliosanctum
Gabriel Finley and the Raven's Riddle, by George Hagen, at proseandkahn
Galexy's Most Wanted, by John Kloepfer, at The Write Path
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, by Sheila Turnage, at Plenty of Pages
The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle, by Christopher Healy, at Log Cabin Library
Icefall, by Matthew Kirby, at Hidden in Pages (audiobook)
The Islands of Chaldea, by Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones, at Parenthetical and On Starships and Dragonwings
Krabat and the Sorcerer's Mill, by Otfried Preussler (translated from the German by Anthea Bell) at Kid Lit Reviews
The Kronos Chronicles (Cabinet of Wonders, etc.) by Marie Rutkoski, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile
The League of Seven, by Alan Gratz, at Wandering Librarians
The Magical Mind of Mindy Munsen, by Nikki Bennett, at Mother, Daughter and Son Book Reviews
Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie, by Jeff Norton, at The Book Zone (For Boys)
Mission Unstopable: The Genius Files, by Dan Gutman, at books4yourkids (possibly not spec. fic.???)
The Night Gardener, by Jonathan Auxier, at Geo Librarian
Oliver and the Seawigs, by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, at Manga Maniac Cafe
Return of the Padawan (Star Wars Jedi Academy) by Jeffrey Brown, at Mom Read It
The Riverman, by Aaron Starmer, at mstamireads
Seven Stories Up, by Laurel Snyder, at Book-a-Day Almanac
The Sword of Kuromori, by Jason Rohan, at Blog of a Bookaholic
The Time of the Fireflys, by Kimberly Griffiths Little, at Ms. Yingling Reads
The Thickety, by J.A. White, at Evelyn Ink
The Trolley to Yesterday, by John Bellairs, at Charlotte's Library
And quick looks at four middle grade fantasy books, with brief notes for teachers, at The Page Turn
Authors and Interviews
Julia Mary Gibson (Copper Magic) at Literary Rambles (giveaway)
G.A. Morgan (The Fog of Forgetting) at The Haunting of Orchid Forsythia
Wendy Knight (Banshee at the Gate) at fourfoxesonehound
Other Good Stuff
Another great Tuesday 10-- Sci Fi Time Travel-- at Views From the Tesseract
Here are the July diversity links from Diversity in YA
Kidlitcon 2014 is shaping up to be a nice one for us readers of MG Spec Fic.-- I don't have the full program to present to you yet (because we've extended the deadline for session proposals until this Friday, August 8), but I can tease a little by saying that Mike Jung (of the truly excellent Geeks, Girls, & Secret Identities) will be there, taking part in a WeNeedMoreDiverse panel! And my program teaser on Friday was the news that Zetta Elliott is coming--she's the author of the upper MG/YA Ship of Souls, among many other books.
I hope all of you can come too! (and that includes authors as well--Friday there is a nice chunk of time for author mingling and book promotion--more info. for authors and publishers here)
And another heads-up-- round-about the middle of August, the call will be going out for bloggers who want to take part in judging the Cybils Awards. For those who haven't heard of them yet, the Cybils are awards given by bloggers to children's and YA books (and aps) in a variety of categories. There are two rounds of judging--first round panelists read the nominated books (around 140 in MG Spec. Fic) and make a shortlist, from which second round panelists will choose a winner). If you're a first round panelist, you don't have to read every single last one--each book has to be read by a minimum of two people.
In any event, it is a great thing to be part of (reading books, chatting about them with your fellow panelists, passionately advocating for your favorites), so do think about throwing your name into the hat! The main criteria for panelists is demonstrated enthusiasm for reading and blogging about the category you want to be part of....so any of you whose blog regularly appears in these round-ups should think about putting your name in for MG Spec Fic (for which I am the category chair).
And finally, Guardians of the Galaxy was really good and all four of us enjoyed it very much indeed! I laughed and cried (mostly at the beginning, when I though I was watching a trailer for A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness) but mostly I laughed. "Nothing goes over my head," says one metaphor-challenged character. "I am too quick for that." (paraphrased....). I was doubtful about the raccoon, but I need not have been.
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On GotG - I ended up crying during the first few minutes too. From then on it was mostly laughs, but what a range of emotion for a 'fun' summer film, eh?!
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